Every child should know about his or her grandparents and
other ancestors. This story is about my father, Benjamin Wade
Butler McEldowney, and I have added a few words about his father.

My father was born in La Grange, Iowa April 28th 1868.
LaGrange had been a stage coach stop on a road between Burlington
and Council Bluffs, Iowa. Before there were railways people had to
travel by stage coach. The stage coach was pulled by four horses
and it was the best way to travel. About that time the Burlington
railway was built. It didn't come up on the hills where La Grange
was but it followed a river a few miles south of town. That is
when the people moved their houses to towns to be on the railway.
Soon all the people had left. You would not be able to find La
Grange on the map today. It was in the far northeast corner of
Lucas county.

Tradition has it that my father's father, John McEldowney had
been a postmaster at the stage stop at La Grange. John was born in
Omagh, Ireland and had three families, one after the other. My
father was the youngest child. John was born either in 1782 or
1792, we can't be sure which. That meant that he was born in the
18th century, my father was born in the 19th century, and I was
born in the 20th century. John died in 1870 when my father was
only two years old.

That left his mother a widow. A year or so later she married
a man by the name of James Scott. They lived in Fayette, Iowa in
the northern part of the state.

James Scott was not a good father. He did not want his boys
to have an education. He kept my father from school to tend the
sheep. Father often told me how lonely it was as he sat on the
hill watching the sheep day after day. A few weeks in the winter
he could attend school but he did not have shoes so when the ground
was frozen, he said he could see his trail across the snow by
little red marks. He bound gunny sack cloth on his feet but when
he stepped on a sharp frozen bit of earth it would cut through the
cloth and cut his feet. Nor did his stepfather want him to learn
to play a musical instrument. My father had gotten a violin
somehow, but he had to practice in the barn where his stepfather
wouldn't hear him. One night his stepfather heard him and came
into the barn, grabbed the violin and smashed it against the side
of the barn.

When my father was in his early twenties he attended a
Methodist revival service and became a Christian. Within a short
time he felt called of God to became a preacher to share the Good
News of the Gospel. He saved what money he could and in 1894, when
he was 26, he walked most of the way to Indianola, Iowa, to Simpson
College. He told them he wanted a college education, He was
shocked when they said he would have to attend their Academy four
year before he could enter college. It would take him eight years
to get a college education.

In the meantime his stepfather died and he had to take care of
his mother. She came and lived with him. To earn money he bought
a cow, named Daisy, and sold milk to students and to homes. He
always said that cow put him through college. He was 32 years old
when he graduated with a B. A. degree in 1900.

He applied to the Methodist Church and became a minister. He
wanted to be a home missionary. One of his first churches was at
White Rock, S. D. in the far northeast corner of the state. One of
his churches was in South Dakota, one in Minnesota, and one in
Iowa. White Rock, too, has largely disappeared as a town.

A couple of years later he began preaching at Henry, S. D. He
was a very sincere preacher so very soon he held revival services
out in the country. One night when he was driving home after
service, the team of horses got lost and he ended up in what had
been a lake bed. It was pitch dark. He used his powerful preacher
voice and called out for help. Finally he saw a light far off on
the bank of the dry lake bed. He drove to it, and from there he
was able to get home.

For those revival services he needed someone to play the
organ. His very good friends, Rev. and Mrs. Hyde, knew of a person
who would be just right. They wrote her. She lived in Chariton,
Iowa. She came and in time the two were married. Her name was
Elizabeth Louise Clark. I was the third boy born to them. Robert
was the first, Morris the second, and I came on March 11, 1907.
My little sister, Clara Jeannette, was born almost two year later,
after we had moved to Esmond, S. D.

All this is just background to what I want to say. He always
was what you might call a country preacher. He was full of energy
and was a fine preacher, but in the Methodist Church, there are
road blocks to keep a certain number of preachers serving small
churches while people who are self important and try to do whatever
the Bishop wants are given big churches. My father had as his one
ambition to serve God without counting the cost. So as a family we
never had much money, but that didn't seem to make any difference.
We children were never made aware of that. We had lovely
children's books and best of all we had music.

My mother had been a seamstress before they were married and
had saved up some money. When we moved to Geddes, S. D. there
waiting for us was a brand new Cable piano she had bought. My
father had never been able to play, but he wanted to give us
children the chance to play music. Mother taught us at first until
we could play simple things. One time when the pianist didn't come
to a prayer meeting my father asked me to play the hymns. You
can't imagine what a thrill that was to be able to play for him.
Then somewhere he found a piece of music called the Pall Mell Trio.
All three of us boys played together and during the following years
we were somewhat a sensation as we played trios at social
gatherings.

My father became our scout master and what fun it was to go to
scout camps. Morris was always making things. One summer he made
a canoe, using barrel stays nailed to a central board and canvas
for the outside. My father almost drowned when he insisted on
trying it out in a bayou a mile outside town. His feet got stuck
in the wood braces inside the canoe when it turned over and he was
head down in the water until we rescued him. He wanted us to have
all the fun we could with it so he found some old buggy wheels and
an axle, put the canoe on it, and pulled the thing over to scout
camp behind a car filled with boys. The only trouble was that
going that far and that fast, the axles got hot, so we had to stop
and grease them.

Then it was time for college. My father had always been so
grateful for his education at Simpson he wanted all of us to go
there. How could this country preacher send three boys and a girl
to college?

My brother Bob was two years ahead of Morris and me in school.
Bob got scholarships and began studying music. When it came time
to send Morris and me, Dad called us together. We knew he had no
money for us but all of us boys had had jobs and had saved a
little, hardly more than enough to buy college clothes. Then my
father told us of the struggle he had had. It looked pretty dim,
but not to my father. He was all enthusiastic and said, with God's
help and if all of us did all we could to help out, we could go to
college. He told us his motto had always been,"Go as far as you
can with God's help, then if you have to stop, stop." He filled us
with hope and said, go, and if we have to stop, we will.

Well, we went to Simpson. We found an upper room apartment a
half mile from college, in the home of a family by the name of
Keane. A friend of our cousin, Olan Ruble, was wanting a place to
stay, and he helped pay the rent. He didn't have much money
either. There was an electric stove in the apartment and we
scheduled our time so each of the three of us took turns making the
meals. My father brought what things he could from the garden.
Before long one or two boys who were having a hard time financially
heard what we were doing and wanted to be included. They paid a
little more than the food cost us and ate our simple meals. My
father kept encouraging us when our cupboard was almost bare. We
kept trying, and together we made it one year, then the second,
then the third. In all we had three different wonderful fellows
rooming with us, and as many as five coming for meals regularly.
The three of us would find work in the community for weekends and
we never had to stop.

Robert had changed majors during his third year so he was in
college five years. He finished a year earlier than Morris and I.
He got a teaching job and almost at once bought a Ford roadster.
My father had an idea. He asked Morris and me to join him and the
three of us were then assigned to preach at four churches on the
North Indianola Circuit. He moved the family to Indianola and
convinced Bob that he should let Morris and me use his Ford so we
could get to our churches. Bob was good to let us have it. Morris
would drop me off at North River Church and he went on to Spring
Hill for Sunday morning services. My father had Carlyle and
Palmyra. We were kept busy preparing sermons and keeping up with
college classes, but the best of it was that during that senior
year we also had in our home Anicito Cabildo, from the Philippines,
Chang Wook Moon, from Korea and Myron Muller from St. Charles,
Iowa. Our father never hesitated if he could help someone get a
college education.

During my senior year my father offered his car so that Morris
and I could go to a State Historical Conference in Iowa City. That
was the farthest east I had ever been. Then at Christmas time
there was to be a Student Volunteer meeting in Detroit. Father
urged us to go. We raised some money to help on the trip, then we
took Cabildo and two girls, Wilena Barker and Helen Richards. Mrs.
Weeks went along as chaperon. Father's unusual contribution was
that on Friday night before we were to leave, Morris and I went to
a picture show in Des Moines. Coming out of the theatre we
discovered that the car was gone. It was not found until Sunday
morning. It had been stripped of everything that could be taken.
Anyone else would have called off the trip but not my father.
Somehow he arranged for repairs to be made during Sunday afternoon
and night so it was ready for us to leave on schedule Monday
morning. I don't know where he got the money to pay for it but
that did not keep him from helping us. At that convention I felt
the call to be a missionary and in the end I became one. The
account of my life is in the book,
THE MAKING A MISSIONARY.

That's the kind of father we had. One other thing is
memorable. He learned poetry and had a poem for every occasion.
He had a little rack made that held bits of poetry. He fixed it
just in front of the steering wheel of his car. As he drove he
learned poetry. Every moment was sacred to him. He was one who
opened doors of learning and of opportunity for others, sometimes
at great cost to him. What a difference it makes when that
happens.

I have already told you one of the guiding principles of my
father's life: Never give up, with God's help go as far as you
can. Another is this: Nothing is ever settled until it is settled
right. Those two mottoes will fill any of you with hope and
ambition so you can make your mark in the world.[by James E.
McEldowney, Spring 1997]